Around the World

Around the World

Naval journalist put on trial in Russia

The Russian government, increasingly using secrecy laws to protect the military from embarrassing revelations, has charged navy Capt. Grigory Pasko with selling classified defense information to an undisclosed foreign country.

Pasko's trial parallels the case of former navy Capt. Alexander Nikitin, who was tried on espionage charges in St. Petersburg last fall after he helped a Norwegian environmental group prepare a report exposing radioactive pollution by the Russian navy above the Arctic Circle. Russia's Supreme Court is scheduled to hear appeals in Nikitin's case next month.

The Pasko case hinges on his videotaping of and reporting on the Pacific Fleet's disposal of radioactive waste in the Sea of Japan. As a correspondent for the military newspaper Boyevaya Vakhta (Combat Watch) in the Far East city of Vladivostok, Pasko provided reports on the dumping to a Japanese newspaper and television station, but his supporters say he never divulged any secret material.

"We are dealing here with a classic case of political persecution," said Alexei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Protection Fund, a journalist rights group that has rallied to Pasko's defens. "We firmly believe that an attempt to conceal the ugly deeds of the Russian military from the world community is a political crime."

Pasko, who could face a sentence of up to 20 years if he is convicted, has been in jail for 14 months. The military rejected a defense motion to open the trial to the public but agreed to permit two observers from journalist and veteran organizations.

Environmental, human rights and journalist groups in Russia and abroad are disturbed by what they see as a growing trend in Russia to use secrecy laws to muzzle environmental critics. Even the charges against Pasko and Nikitin have been classified, making it difficult for their lawyers to mount their defense.

Amnesty International has declared both men to be "prisoners of conscience" and urged the government to drop the charges. Pasko also has won the support of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which appealed to Russian President Boris Yeltsin to set him free.

"We believe a guilty verdict against Pasko would have a chilling effect on investigative journalism in Russia and set a dangerous precedent for future use of the country's law on state secrets by officials against journalists," Ann Cooper, the organization's executive director, wrote in a letter to Yeltsin.

The first day of trial was taken up with procedural matters and the reading of the first part of the 67-page indictment, Pasko's attorneys said.

The lawyers said they are not optimistic about winning before the panel of naval judges but plan to appeal to the Supreme Court and, if necessary, the European Court.

"The legend that the prosecution has concocted simply does not hold together," said Anatoly Pyshkin, one of Pasko's attorneys.

The Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, will not discuss the charges against Pasko.

Before his arrest, Pasko also had begun looking into the whereabouts of millions of yen that Japan had donated for the cleanup of radioactive waste in the Russian Far East.

"Grigory was the only person who was writing on the subject of disposal of radioactive waste in the ocean on a regular, professional basis," said his wife, Galina Morozova, from their home in Vladivostok.

Pasko's greatest expose came in 1993 when he videotaped sailors dumping radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan. When his footage was aired on Japanese television, it sparked international outrage.

After his arrest, police searched his apartment and seized documents, a computer and videotapes but missed one tape that was kept with children's videos. Released by his supporters this week, it showed sailors on a barge throwing mortar shells and other old munitions into the sea.

Many travel to see Pope in Mexico

Among them were several dozen Totonaco Indians from the mountains of Mexico's Sierra Norte, preparing for a rough, six-hour pilgrimage over treacherous roads for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the pope, who arrives today.

Tickets to the pope's appearances this weekend are scarce, with each parish receiving between a handful and 100, so the Totonacos who were chosen to go considered themselves blessed already.

"May the pope help me to support my family," said Susana Tirzo Tirzo, 21, selected along with 800,000 others across the continent to see John Paul celebrate a Sunday Mass at a Mexico City racetrack.

Bus drivers refuse to take the crumbling, cliff-hanging dirt road to the mile-high village in Mexico's towering Sierra Norte, so the pilgrims will pile into trucks to reach the nearest highway, 4 miles away.

"I want to thank God for allowing me to see (the pope) in person," said Tirzo Tirzo, one of 120 young Totonacos from Hueytlalpan and surrounding highland villages who will make the trip to the capital on tomorrow.

Mexicans feel a special closeness to the pope because of his devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose image adorns everything from construction sites to government offices to the adobe and concrete homes that line the streets of Hueytlalpan (pronounced way-TLAHL-pahn) in central Puebla state.

The pope visits the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe tomorrow to announce a new church strategy for the Americas. He will pray in front of the image of the Virgin Mary, whose storied appearance to an Aztec peasant in 1531 turned millions of polytheist Indians into Roman Catholics.

On Sunday, the pope will hold the largest gathering of his trip, celebrating Mass at the racetrack. He presides over a meeting "with all the generations of the century" at Azteca Stadium on Monday before departing Tuesday for St. Louis and a meeting with President Clinton.

As many as 500 bishops were heading to Mexico City for the pope's visit, which he says he is paying to the American continent as much as to Mexico. Yesterday, bishops from Argentina and the Vatican gazed at Diego Rivera's murals in Mexico City's historic center.

Millions of faithful are expected to line Mexico City's streets to catch a glimpse of "El Papa" on the fourth visit of his 20-year papacy to Mexico. Many planned their own private pilgrimages.

More than anything, residents of Hueytlalpan said they hoped for inspiration, maybe even a blessing, from John Paul.

"There are many people here who have no work, no income," said Lorenzo Gonzalez Munoz, 58, a field hand. "May the pope bless us."

"I'm curious. I've always wanted to see him," said Tirzo's cousin, Gisela Tirzo Tirzo, 17, displaying a homemade Guadalupe shrine of portraits of the virgin, red and green ribbons and a teddy bear.

Residents earn a hard scrabble living off coffee, cattle, plantain, mangoes and other crops. They blend Roman Catholicism with Totonaco traditions, celebrating Mass in Spanish and singing church songs in both Spanish and Totonac.

Piles of corn husks and coffee beans filled the corners of the chilly living room. "In this home we are Catholics," proclaimed a sign on the wall, alongside a calendar featuring the late Texan pop star Selena.

Jose Luis, 64, a Carmelite friar at Hueytlalpan's centuries-old church, said he hoped the pope would urge the government and church officials to address the region's poverty and discrimination against indigenous peoples.

"We can have a beautiful Mass," Luis said. "But we need a message of justice."

01-22-99